Speaking on a recent episode of The View from The Lane podcast, James Maw questioned whether Tottenham Hotspur’s late collapse against West Ham United has ‘stung’ Jose Mourinho’s side.
Following their disappointing home loss against Everton in their first Premier League fixture of the 2020/21 campaign, Tottenham bounced back with a convincing 5-2 victory over Southampton, drawing 1-1 with Newcastle United and they thrashed Manchester United 6-1.
In their next league fixture, against West Ham, it appeared as if Spurs would be going on to secure yet another convincing victory, as two goals from Harry Kane and one from Son Heung-min saw Mourinho’s side race into a three-goal lead.
This was a lead they would hold until the 82nd minute, however, after Fabian Balbuena pulled one back for the Hammers, and Davinson Sanchez diverted one into his own net shortly afterwards, a remarkable long-range strike from Manuel Lanzini saw West Ham equalise in the 94th minute, with the game ending 3-3.
The effect of this collapse was one topic of conversation on a recent episode of The View from The Lane podcast, in which Maw questioned whether the West Ham fixture has had an impact on Spurs in their games following the 3-3 draw.
He said: “It feels a bit like what happened at the end of that West Ham game has stung Mourinho and possibly the players a bit. Clearly, they’ve been far more conservative in the three matches since and they haven’t looked anywhere near as fluid or as dynamic going forward.
“Son was especially quiet [against Brighton], I can’t really think there were too many moments at all from him, really, in the hour or so that he played, there wasn’t really much to say of his performance at all.
“So, you can see the logic there. They really chucked that one away, to concede three goals in the last eight minutes of a game with you’re 3-0 up at home is abysmal, on a mental and technical level. So, I can kind of see why [the] reaction to that might be to go back to basics, for want of a better phrase, which is kind of what they’ve done.”
Do you think the West Ham result has had an impact on Tottenham's recent performances?
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TIF Thoughts on James Maw’s comments regarding Tottenham Hotspur’s recent performances…
From Maw’s comments, it is clear that the journalist is of the belief that the West Ham draw has impacted the way that Tottenham have approached their subsequent games.
And, considering the club only narrowly defeated Burnley and Brighton, 1-0 and 2-1 respectively, in their most recent league games, as well as losing 1-0 to Royal Antwerp in the Europa League, it would indeed seem as if Spurs have been rather more conservative of late than in the games preceding the West Ham fixture.